Trip to London

Flew down to London yesterday. I had to present the prototype to our main internal customers in a sweet office in Little Venice near Paddington Station. I love the urban design aesthetic of the underground in London... and snapped a few pics of vanishing perspectives and the like. I have to say that the Heathrow Express is a great service that really does take you from the airport to the centre of London in 15 mins.

Little Venice is a fab space just off platform 8 of Paddington Station. It looks like it has only recently been renovated... and was busy with pedestrians. I could imagine it would be very social when the weather is better... loads of people hanging out when the sun was shining.

I spotted Yakitoria on our way to the office... and was fortunate enough to be able to try it out for my lunch. A chap called Craig, who was with us (he was presenting too), is a big Japanese fan and we grabbed the opportunity to check the place out. Fab decor... very chic in a rich, vibrant yet kind of minimal way. The space uses colour very well and focussed on the details nicely.

Their edamme was to-die-for - nice and seasoned with chilli and garlic. I follows the edamme with miso soup and vegetable tempura - both excellent in their own ways. Lovely.

After lunch I presented the prototype of the product to senior (I mean SENIOR) management and it went down a storm! It was really well received and the audience were encouraged by our vision for the end product. My boss was happy and others in the audience, with whom I've worked before, were pleased. I was delighted by the response - presentations are what I do well and are something I love to do.


After the presentation I had the unfortunate privilege of navigating the tube from Paddington to Moorgate. OMGoodness - how do Londoners cope with such blatant rudeness? Horrendous. Took me a while but I got to meet the person I needed to speak to and got some detail for building into one of my change requests.

After all the stress of the day... it was an absolute joy to go back to the Sherlock Holmes Hotel on Baker Street. What a beautiful boutique hotel.

The interiors were magnificent... different class from the standard hotels I usually stay in... like the Hilton I stayed at when in Philly. Very relaxing with soft lighting and bathroom facilities that Olly would die for.

After grabbing a coffee in the nearby Starbucks with my boss for a debrief... I headed to Waterloo to finally meet up with Roy - he took me to a venue at the South Bank called Giraffe for food and a great blether. Giraffe is a child-friendly world music themed space with great interiors and fab music. I got to hear the beautiful voice of Bebel Gilberto while we were eating which was lovely.

Roy works in new media and is looking to expand into comedy and documentaries. He is a friend of the Existential Punk and has actually seen her in the flesh (I like to think of her as a Charlie figure who contacts her Angels via encouraging comments on blogs).

We really hit it off. We talked about Jesus... the emerging church and how it is almost becoming another denominational "thing"... Macs and toys and...

...moleskines (he showed me his and showed him both of mine). We talked about charismania and dogmatism and the Salvation Army. We talked work... and blogging... and generally chewed the fat as if we'd known each other for years.

Afterwards, we headed back to Waterloo via the Thames... I was in tourist mode and snapped a few pics of the view.

I got back to the hotel and pretty much chilled. I realised why I don't watch the telly... when I tried to relax by watching the highlights of the comedy awards. Wi-fi wasn't free (ridiculous) and I only had my work laptop with me.

All in... good times. Thanks Roy! Take that idea I passed to you and run with it, bro!

Flickr pics

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